her in Crompton Place as its
mistress, but that good woman had little to say, and allowed the
servants to have their way in everything. The change from her quiet home
to all the grandeur and ceremony of the Crompton House did not suit her,
and she returned, like Jakey, to her household gods when the family
came back in the spring.

* * * * *

Several years have passed since then, and Crompton Place is just as
lovely as it was when we first saw it on the day of the lawn party.
Three children are there now; two girls, Dora and Lucy, and a sturdy
boy, who was christened James Harris Crompton, but is called Harry. The
doll-house has been brought to light, with Mandy Ann and Judy, to the
great delight of the little girls, and Amy is never brighter than when
playing with the children, and telling them of the palms and oranges,
alligators and negroes in Florida, which she speaks of as home.

Eloise is very happy, and if a fear of the Harris taint ever creeps into
her mind, it is dissipated at once in the perfect sunshine which crowns
her life. Nearly every year Jakey comes to visit "chile Dory an' her lil
ones," and once Mandy Ann spent a summer in Crompton as cook in place of
Cindy, who was taking a vacation. But Northern ways of regularity and
promptness did not suit her.

"'Clar for't," she said, "I jess can't git use't to de Yankee Doodle
quickstep nohow. At Miss Perkinses dey wasn't partic'lar ef things was
half an hour behime."

Her mind dwelt a good deal on what she had seen at Miss Perkins's, more
than forty years before, and on her children and Ted, and when Cindy
returned in the autumn she went back to him and the twins, laden with
gifts from Amy and Eloise, the latter of whom saw that her mother gave
more judiciously than she would otherwise have done. Both Amy and Eloise
are fond of driving, and nearly every day the carriage goes out, but
the coachman is no longer Sam. He is married and lives in the village,
and his place is filled by Tom Walker, who wears a brown livery, and
fills the position with a dignity one would scarcely expect in the tall,
lank boy, once the bully in school and the blackguard of the town.

There have been three or four different teachers in District No. 5,--all
normal graduates, and all during their term of office boarding with Mrs.
Biggs, who is never tired of boasting of her intimacy with the
Cromptons, and Eloise in particular. Every detail of the acc